


Until Dusk

by QueenOfScars



Category: Until Dawn
Genre: After Dawn, Climbing Class, Dawn - Freeform, Dusk - Freeform, F/M, Jess Dead, Love, No happy endings for Josh, Post-Game, Sticking with mostly canon ships, Wendigos, psychological stuff, relationships, until
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:24:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6036040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfScars/pseuds/QueenOfScars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em> Oh my God. I am alive. Against all odds, I survived the night. And somehow, that little happiness is enough to distract me from the pain and fear and fucking cold and JessJessJessJessJessJess where is she? </em><br/>It's the day after Until Dawn, and the remaining friends are left to deal with the terrible burden of Death. Can they make it through twelve more hours in one piece? Or will dusk be the end of the end?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 7am-8am

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm mostly writing this because I hate all the other fics I'm writing and this is basically an escape. Yay.  
> Better try and make it good, amirite?

**7:00am. Mike.**

I fall onto the snow, face first, coughing, choking, breathing in the terrible smoke that clouds the air and closes around my throat like a fist. Oh my god. I am  _alive._ Against all odds, I have  _survived the night._ And somehow, that little happiness is enough to distract from the pain and fear and fucking  _cold_ and JessJessJessJessJess _Jess_ where is she?

Last time I saw her she was alive. Well and truly alive. Beat up, a general mess, bloody, but alive. She's a fighter, I know she is, and nothing could've taken her from this world. Nothing. 

I realise my eyes are still squeezed shut, not sure why. Not sure. Don't want to see what's happening. How do I have the energy to force them open? But I do. And I don't like what I see.

Fire, smoke, ice, a contrasting whirl of snow, why hasn't it melted? Intense, intense heat, warming me and cooking me slowly from the inside out. Roasted human, great wendigo feed. Bet I smell like a five-course meal.

Blurry vision, ugh. The house is, like, a total wreck. Keeps swimming in and out of focus, headache. Fear, pangs of fear, waves of the stuff. Why am I scared? For Jess. Not for me, I'm long past insane, but Jess? No. Can't leave her.

Matt is pulling me up, gesturing to a helicopter above us, I think. He's crying. I'm crying too. Probably for a reason. I'm so numb, so numb, mind and body, cold and dull and everything is twisted like a fun-house and Matt says something about how he's sorry and it all goes black.

**7:10am. Sam.**

We're all on the helicopter now, sat on these hard leather seats that dig into my ass. I hardly feel it. We sit in two rows of four like mourners at a funeral, facing each other but refusing to make eye contact. People are watching us, standing either side of our solemn rows, but they make no effort to help any of us, not even Mike, who is unconscious. He's slumped over Matt's lap now that Jess isn't here to cradle his head. She's dead. Mouth ripped open. Only bones left in her jaw area, tongue ripped away, pretty teeth cracked and ripped from pink gums. Died from blood loss, trauma. Matt gave us a pretty detailed description of her murder in an old mineshaft.

Death by wendigo. How do you write that on a tombstone above an empty grave?

Why am I so flippant at a terrible time like this? I'm so awful. I've always been heartless like this. The fact that Jess is gone, gone forever, will hit me like a brick soon enough and I'll crumple and cry and everyone will see me for the weakling I am.

No one speaks. We don't have the energy. Ashley has silent tears running down her cheeks and dripping from her little red nose. Chris has an arm around her. What did Josh say? A traumatic event could push them together? Something like that. He's right, sadly, horrifically right, even from beyond the grave. Oh, did I forget to mention? He's dead too. Nobody saw his corpse, but hey, it's a pretty safe assumption to make.

I cared about him so much, man. After Beth and Hannah... We spoke a lot, helped each other slowly through the overwhelming grief. I never deleted any texts that he sent me. A little record of our friendship, hurt, suffering and reconciliation with life. How we learned to live again.

The Washingtons have lost all three of their children now. Hope we don't have to break it to them. Maybe whoever picked us up will do it. Go Emily, radioing them like that. She's so smart, if a little bitchy.

I think these people are the police. How do we explain that the psychopaths were our best friend and mythical creatures? How do we explain the trauma we are all going through without sounding like lunatics? Will we even get time to be together, devise a strategy to explain all this, before we are questioned and examined and broadcasted to the four corners of the world?

Emily's wendigo bite? The gashes and scratches that decorate each of our faces like paint on canvases? The huge black eye that shadows Ashley's face, and the pig's blood that spattered her jacket? What to say, what to do.

I've always been a logical thinker. I'll make up something.

Ashley's positively sobbing now. It grates against my ears, her raw, unrepressed agony. Can't she be quiet like the rest of us? Stony faced like Em? Quietly comforting like Chris? Stoically cold like me? 

**7:24am. Ashley.**

I cry too much. I always have. But this time I have an excuse.

Josh and Jess are dead, dead forever, gone, gone permanently, and the last thing I thought of them both were  _slut_ and  _psychopath._ I hate myself. I hate them. I hate everyone. 

Fresh tears spill down my face. I choke on them. My mouth gapes open but I can't close it. I convulse slightly. Ugly crying. Can't help it.

My whole body aches. Physically aches. I was stretched to my limit and past it, paying the price for my survival.

* * *

_Every muscle tight. Tense. Screaming to move, to be free. Joints creaking, whining in misery._

_Any moment it'll see me. It'll see me and slowly lope over to me, defenceless little me, and pull off my head and swallow me whole. All of us in the lodge right now have the same thoughts. We're all envisioning our deaths._

_Sam and Mike have a plan, I think they're going to light the lodge on fire, because fire kills the wendigo. They can enact the plan by themselves, but Emily, Chris and I just need to get the hell out before they blow the place._

_It's so nearly light, so nearly daytime, when the wendigo leaves and returns to the forest. It's so nearly dawn. I'm so close to the open door. To salvation. Me, and Em too. I glance at her and she smiles slightly, encouragingly, but her face is wracked and tormented. The smile looks plastered on and fake._

_Don't move, her expression screams. Or we're both dead. And it'll be your fault._

_I can't stay tensed any longer. She's at the end of her rope too. The strain on her pretty face. My chattering teeth that threaten to give us away. We have no choice. Now or never._

_In perfect synchronisation, we turn and run for the door. It takes a mere second to arrive, but it is a second of irrational panic and terror and the suspense of whether or not claws will sink into your back and rip the spine from it. It is the longest second of my life. Emily, usually cool and brave, is crying, the same hysteria flowing through her veins._

_As one, we lunge through the door and fall into the powdery snow outside. We escaped. Now all we could do was wait._

* * *

I bury my face into Chris' chest in attempt to stem the emotions that flow through my body but it doesn't help. My sobs of guilt and anguish slice the silent air. Sam's glaring at me. Don't blame her. Mike's awake. He hasn't moved though, still resting on Matt's knees. He really loved Jess.

Where are we going? Are we there yet?

~~~~**7:57am. Emily.**

Fucking hell. Why is this stupid helicopter ride so long? Stupid shit. I just want to go home now. Go to bed. Hug Matt. He's busy trying to support Mike, who has literally let himself go. Think he heard what Matt said about Jess being... Gone. 

I stick my tongue into my cheek and bite down on it. I taste blood. It hurts. Anything to stop me from crying. From looking weak in front of my friends.

I cannot believe that the last thing I ever said to Jess was something about her being a skank. Now she's gone. Not gone, that makes it sound like she might come back. She's  _dead._ She  _died_ thinking that I hated her. 

Suddenly I feel hollow. Empty. As if my insides have been scraped out. There is a horrible feeling in my chest and I can't do it any more, being strong is hard when you're carrying the weight of someone's happiness on your head.

I wonder what it feels like to die?

**8:00am. Mike.**

I'm awake. My head hurts less now. I want to go back to sleep. Back to the darkness, to a world where Jess is beside me and wendigos don't exist and Josh is still sane and everyone is at peace.

I'm going insane. Or at least, I'm on the way. Maybe I'll end up like Josh, totally psycho, wrecked by the twisting death of one I love. Maybe I'll end up taking pills upon pills upon pills, visiting a psychologist every other day, looking at ink blots and pictures and revealing my darkest fears to a person I hardly know.

The helicopter's landing.


	2. 8am-9am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 8am-9am.  
> The helicopter lands and the group are dragged into questioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're enjoying so far xD  
> Writing is so hard! By the way, in case your curious, in The Mystical Land of Britain we pronounce 'vase' like 'var-z' instead of 'vay-ce'. Random fact of the day.  
> I wanted to portray Sam as a heartless bitch. I love her though. Also, #FuckAshley man. I hate her.  
> Chris deserves better. He deserves Josh.

**8:00am. Matt.**

I'm crying. Tears dripping down my face, rolling off, my heart thudding and my body convulsing in guilt, in pain. It's all my fault. I made Jess stay still, forced her into a statue position, when she was so hurt, so badly beat up. I remember her split lip, the way it dropped claret down her chin. The thin scratch that spiked like a lightening scar down her porcelain cheek, grooves where the splintered claws sank deep into her skin and tugged at her soft flesh. The blow that probably shattered her petite nose. The way her beautiful face was broken and cracked like an expensive vase thrown to the floor.

How I saw her eyes when she died. How they were wide and full of horrible, animal terror, primal fear. There was something terrible and wild in those eyes, something indescribable. Seeing the bottom half of her face ripped away, seeing her cheeks stretch until the muscles snapped and popped and cried out, how her teeth cracked and tore from her gums and how she screamed as the light drained from her panicked eyes, that almost tipped me over the edge. The edge of the cliff of madness. I felt the vertigo as I teetered on the edge. Maybe insanity feels like falling from that rocky face.

Oh my God. What the hell? What the fuck is going on? I can feel the vertigo in my stomach, the shocking sensation of it rising into my throat. Am I falling? Falling, falling, falling from the cliff edge? Tipping into madness, beginning my spiralling descent into the lonely darkness that Josh lingered in for a whole year? 

Poor Josh. For all we know he's dead. Dead or alive, which is worse? Unanswerable questions.

The vertigo is getting worse. I'm not spiralling, I'm tumbling, down, down, can't stop...

I jerk myself back into full consciousness. I'm not dying, or going mad, the helicopter is just landing. Finally.

Wherever we are, it's not snowing. Relief floods over me. Fed up of snow. The helicopter lands with a huge thud that shakes us all from our depressed stupors. I doubt Ashley's even aware of her crying any more. Chris is still holding her. That ship has definitely sailed, won't the fangirls be proud? 

**8:12am. Sam.**

The helicopter has stopped whirring, and we've landed on the grass. Everything is still silent, though. The people watching us haven't moved, and none of us are even trying to stand. We all ache and strain too much.

For long, tense minutes everyone simply waits. A radio crackle sounds. Nobody reacts. It pauses, and stutters, and gets louder, scraping at our eardrums, whistling and squealing. Chris loudly breathes out of his nose, still cradling Ash to his chest, but even she's shut up. Listening. Wondering if anything will speak over the radio.

But the sound just gets louder, and people hurry into our compartment, joining the ones around us. All of them leap into action, shining torches into the corners of the bleak 'room', revealing the crying radios, small black boxes emitting the awful noise. I finally get a good view of our, at best, rescuers, at worst, captors.

They are all tall people, muscular and broad. I understand I'm not exactly the tallest at about 5"1', but these guys would give Chris a run for his money. They're all wearing identical outfits. Long black leggings that cling to their toned legs for dear life, and short-sleeve t-shirts of the same sooty colour. The shirts are looser, but leave their strong arms bare. It's pretty terrifying. Their wrists are all covered by thick black straps, covered with weird gadgets and transmitters. There's a strap around their waists and mid-torsos too, and a few decorate their legs. Jeez, who even needs that much tech? Some are women, most men, and they talk to each other in lowered voices. Two are twiddling with the dials on the radio boxes, unsuccessfully attempting to change the frequency. I could do it better than those bozos. Matt and Mike are both straining to listen to the mutters. I join in.

"Six... Six of them... Happened?"

"Don't ask, we can't..."

"Officer... Gotta question them..."

"Shut up, they're all listening!"

Our heads snap back to the floor as the group turn towards us. 

"See? They're fine!" A low, gentle woman's voice. Louder this time, so we can all hear. "You got that radio going?" She puts one hand on her hip.

The woman's very pretty. She has dark skin - not black, more South American - and a long coal-coloured ponytail that's pulled really tight. The end of her hair is dip-dyed purple. She has high cheekbones and dark brown eyes that shimmer. She's smirking.

"You're probably scared shitless right now, huh?" I stare at her defiantly. Ashley sort of half-nods and buries her face in Chris' shoulder. He grimaces. Matt and Mike don't move or even make eye contact. Emily, as usual, has an opinion, and annoyingly chooses to voice it.

"Where are we? What's happening?" Her voice is surprisingly quiet. I've never seen Em so subdued, but I guess being bitten by a wendigo, being psychologically tortured by a kid with psychosis and having two of your best friends brutally murdered does that to people.

"Well, we aren't authorised to tell you much, but we're with the Police. I believe one of you radioed us at around 300 hours? We came as soon as possible."

Emily doesn't reply. Her fierce eyes drop to the floor. How, after this terrible night, can she still be beautiful? I bet I look like Death.

We all ponder this statement. The police? Emily said that she radioed park service. Maybe they contacted the Police. What do they know? What can we lie about?

**8:23am. Chris.**

The tall woman who spoke gestures toward what appears to be the door leading out of the helicopter. Great. More people will be out there. More questions. More answers that I don't know if we can give. Sam and I need to strategise. I need to talk to the others, somewhere private. But not here, not now, not in front of these people.

Suddenly the compartment feels very, very small. As if it's closing in. No. I'm getting out, now, let me out of here, let me out...

"Let me out!" The words aren't mine, I'm breathing hard, my eyes are wide, my glasses slip from my nose and shatter on the floor. Can't think straight. I need to stay calm.

My body lunges toward the door. What help will that be? I can't control myself, I'm hyperventilating now, not enough air, everything's kind of swimming, my head hurts, the pain is blinding me, every sound grates against my brain.

"Open the goddamn door!" The woman yells over my laboured breaths. She's in charge, probably.

The others silently comply, and I literally throw myself out the hatch,  falling a metre or two down to the soft, dewy grass. That should've hurt. I'm too numb now. 

My best friend is dead. Josh Washington is dead. As if it wasn't bad enough when Hannah and Beth were taken, as if it wasn't bad enough to find out that Hannah was one of those things, now we have to lose Josh? 

The world is cruel and soulless. I know that now. Why am I such a wreck? I need to take control, show the world that it cannot beat me. 

But I still lie here, on the wonderfully cool and comforting blades of grass, sobs shaking my broken frame. I am a shrivelled shrub of the guy I was twelve hours ago. Even then I was just a coward hiding behind Ashley and a grin.

What am I now?

**8:30am. Emily.**

Chris totally freaked. He started shaking and going crazy, screaming and sobbing. I'm not surprised. Josh, aka The Psychopath, was his best friend, and now he's probably being chewed up by the deformed version of his little sister. 

Maybe he's the only one who sees the situation for what it is. Why are we not going insane? We've just fought off monsters. Actual fucking  _monsters._ And we're all just chill? I guess that night really desensitised us.

Mike is crying again. I want to hug him, but that would kind of be an insult to Jess' memory. Not that I even liked that bitch. Ashley is kind of holding out her arms, in a lame attempt to stop Chris, but she still hasn't moved now Chris is gone. Sam is thinking. She always bites the corner of her mouth until it wrinkles when she's in deep thought, and furrows her eyebrows, which are singed at the moment. What's she thinking about?

The woman who I spoke to raises an eyebrow slightly and talks into a speaker that dangles in her face. Something about medics, for Chris, I assume. "Everybody out!" She calls.

We all leave in perfect, practiced silence. I stumble slightly down the stairs that somebody has placed up against the edge of the helicopter. They are made of grey metal, dulled with rust and time, slightly damp. Did it rain? Maybe it rained, after all, the park service said something about a huge storm.

There is a vast building in front of us that resembles a cardboard box with a door. Not the best taste in design, but it's only a Police structure. Normally I'd make a snide comment, but I'm tired, so I let it slide.

"This is Blackwood PD." The FBI-style woman struts up beside me. "They'll probably need to ask you some questions, apparently one of you transmitted some... Mildly worrying information?"

"Me." I nod. "It was-"

"Don't tell me anything. Wait for them." She flashes a pretty white smile. "My name is Officer Liatenchi, by the way. Everyone follow me."

"No! No, what about Chris?" Ashley sounds on the point of actual hysteria. 

"He's been taken to the medical department to be treated and calmed. Don't worry, you'll be reunited within an hour or two." I like Liatenchi. She seems reasonably flippant, but at the same time efficient and obviously does her job well. She bites her lip. "You all look pretty beat up. And your shoulder!" She glances at the bloody, mangled hole in my leather jacket. "Yeesh. We'll get that all sorted soon."

Using her fingertip, she pushes open the door, holds it for us. We single-file in like schoolchildren, and stand guiltily in a huddle as if we've done something wrong. The room is whitewashed, walls and ceiling, and kinda cold now that I think about it. The floor is an orangey-brown carpet. There is a counter two-thirds of the way into the room that goes from wall to wall, with yellow and blue stripes across it. Police colours. The counter blocks the way to another door, and behind it sits a fleshy white man, dressed in the black and white Police uniform, unlike Liatenchi's awesome getup.

Liatenchi walks in behind us. "We have successfully retrieved the group, sir!"

"I see. Thank you, Officer. You are dismissed until further notice."

She grins her white smile and turns to us. "I'll be looking after your case, probably. See you all later." She salutes the flabby man and leaves through a side door that I hadn't noticed.

"So, hello. Um, I know some difficult things have probably happened to you tonight and you may have difficulty talking about them, but we need to ask you some questions." His voice is high pitched and squeaky. "Through here, please."

He lifts up a part of the counter and we all parade in, and through the door that leads into a big square room. More doors lead off of each wall. It's like a maze in here. How on earth does everyone find there way around?

The room has grey-beige walls, made up of panels that are awkwardly cut to accommodate the doors. A huge table is in the centre, surrounded by wooden cafeteria style chairs. A huge mirror is set into a wall, probably one-way, just like in the movies.

"Sit." The man squeaks. "Someone will be with you shortly. Feel free to talk."

Not likely. I'm not an idiot. I've seen enough crime movies to know that there's a psychologist on the other side of that mirror, watching us, waiting for us to say something, scribbling illegible notes on a clipboard.

We all sit. What else can me do?

**8:49am. Ashley.**

It's feels like forever since they left us in here. Nobody's come to talk to us yet. In fact, only Emily's spoken, to tell us that the out of place mirror on the wall is one-way. Then Sam muttered something about privacy. And silence reigned again.

I want to break the awful silence. It pounds painfully against my ears and I almost want to clap my hands over the sides of my head to protect them. But instead I close my eyes. I'm so exhausted. None of us slept all night, so the bags under our eyes and my running mascara really adds to the 'beat up zombies' effect.

Mike looks the worst of us. Missing two fingers, covered in grime, slightly burned from the lodge explosion. Tear tracks carve tracks of clean skin down his face. His eyes are really puffy and red. I hated Jess, which softens the blow of her death a bit, but she was Mike's girlfriend. I hurt at the thought of her death. What does he feel? Like he's being ripped apart, probably.

Sam is just messy and a little scratched up. She luckily avoided a lot of wendigo attacks by staying so still. She has a lot of nerve, thankfully, or none of us would be sitting here. We'd be Hannah's next meal. Matt looks like a startled deer, huge eyes and alert posture. Some of Jess' blood has covered his fancy letter jacket. It's probably permanently ruined. Emily looks the most tired of all of us. Understandable, seeing as she fell down into the mines, survived several wendigos chasing her, got badly bitten and still managed to escape. As soon as she gets back? I almost got Mike to shoot her. Oops. I was just scared, scared for me, scared for Chris, we'd both finally admitted how we felt about each other... But there was no excuse for that. Idiot, Ashley.

Me? I'm fine. Other than the fact that I'm paler than Sam and covered in fake-Josh-pig blood. Oh, and I have a fucking huge black eye from when I stabbed the Psycho with scissors (small victories) and he punched me unconcious.

I won't call him Josh. That was not the Josh we knew. That was a haze of drug misuse and hatred and guilt and mental illness. Not Josh. The boy I know, who comforted me after his sisters died, who stayed strong just for us, who was funny and happy and dreamed of making movies one day, becoming famous? He's dead. I hope he is. I hope he isn't suffering.

Sam bangs her head against the table. We all stare at her. "They're waiting for us to say something!"

Matt nods in agreement. Mike looks back down. 

"Well, here's something. Listen, whoever's watching, we have no choice but to tell the truth about what happened. No lie could cover it up. We'll answer your questions, right?" Sam looks pointedly at us.

We all nod slowly. Except Mike. He still doesn't move.

For a while nothing happens. Sam looks puzzled, she hoped her little speech would provoke some kind of action. What are they doing? Why are we still here? Should we be doing something? Minutes pass.

The door finally swings open. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave Kudos and comments! Advice appreciated but please be nice I have the emotional strength of a lollipop ;-;  
> Do you think the characters are ok?


	3. 9am-10am.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Too many questions. Not enough answers. What can we even begin to say?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3!  
> I'm really enjoying this so far!

**9:00am. Chris.**

Waking up is not easy. I am at the bottom of deep water, and it is a cold, murky blue. I cannot breathe or feel, all I can do is stare up with frozen eyes, reach with my thoughts toward the far away surface. That surface is consciousness, and as much as I wish to lift my fingers and brush it, moving seems all but impossible.

And suddenly I am floating. Floating, rising, slowly ascending towards the blinding and terrible light of awakening. I am panicking, I don't know why, but I don't want to wake up, I don't want to face a day without my closest friend, without the tortured and ill boy who I've known for years.

I feel like a bad person. How could I not notice Josh was sick? I'm so inobservant. I can try to tell myself it's not my fault, but that's a pretty lie, one I refuse to convince myself of.

The light is coming closer, and I find I can breathe again. Except I can't, being underwater and all. My lungs are burning, and I open my mouth to draw a breath just as the tip of my nose breaks the still, still surface of the liquid, and I spin into  wakefulness.

"Wha..." My eyes flicker open, for real this time. At first everything is hazy, but my vision clears.

What happened? I remember having an attack of something, I remember how nice the grass smelled, how everything was spinning and then black. 

And now I'm here. Where are my friends? Is Ashley okay? Please god, don't let me lose them as well...

I survey my surroundings. Everything is really white, blindingly so, and I have to squint for a minute before checking the rest of the room out. The walls are made of small square tiles like a bathroom, and the floor is a duck-egg blue carpet, like the one we have at home. I'm wedged into the corner, on a small rectangular mattress, with my heavy head propped up on two thick pillows. From my vantage point, I see a door cut into one wall. The rest of the room is empty, but the air smells of medicine. A hospital?

I use my weakened hands to slowly lever myself into a sitting position. My neck aches and my head is a dead weight, but other than that I feel better than I should, seeing as I fell out of a helicopter. 

Steadily, I tense my aching legs and stand, muscles trembling involuntarily, getting used to supporting my body mass again. Just as I feel ready to take a few steps, a woman I recognise from the helicopter roughly pushes open the door with her hip.

She glances down at the bed, then up at me, shaped brows furrowing momentarily. "You're supposed to be resting, kiddo." 

Kiddo? I'm nineteen now, don't deserve this  _kid_ bullshit. "I feel better," I lie through clenched jaws.

"You don't look better," she comments, "but if you say so. My name's officer Liatenchi, I'll be handling your case "

Case? Officer? "Are you the police?" I ask. Liatenchi nods, and I attempt to smile but it feels more like a grimace. "I'm Chris. Nice to meet you, but, where are my friends?" 

"They'll be going in for questioning about the events of tonight right now. You can rejoin them once you've-"

Questioning? We're obviously in a PD, and this is likely the medical room. "I'm good, can I see them?"

Liatenchi frowns slightly. "You passed out for over an hour. I shouldn't let you leave, but I guess you seem fine. Come with me."

She's right, I feel stronger already, and I need to speak to my friends as soon as I can. What are they telling the police at the moment?

I didn't anticipate how big this place was. PDs are usually small, but then again, everything is way oversized at Blackwood Pines. It takes a good five minutes to walk to a small, silent room, where everyone but Matt sits around a table. A mirror is on one of the walls, why? Where's Matt?

"Chris!" Ashley starts crying again.

"Ash!" I sit down beside her and hold her close to my chest, her love and warmth giving me much-needed strength.

**9:03am. Matt.**

"Sorry to keep you waiting." A tall man with pointy, mousy features and long black hair opens the door to our little sitting place. He wears the same uniform as the pale man at the front desk. "I'm here to ask a couple questions."

We all nod. We'd been expecting that.

"However, I will have to question you separately. Trust me, I know you don't want to leave each other right now, but it's necessary for us to be able to find out what really went on last night."

Sam sighs loudly. They think if we are all questioned together, we'll influence each other and lie. So much for trust.

"I'll need one of you to come with me." Ah. That's a problem. Who goes first?

Not Ash. She's a mess right now, not knowing where Chris is. Sam looks like she would stab-a-bitch if she had to go first. I won't make Em do it. Mike isn't responding. That just leaves me.

My chair scrapes the hard floor as I slowly stand. "Me. I'll go."

"Matt..." Sam looks kind of worried, but I give her a reassuring nod and follow Long-Hair out of the room, into one of the rooms that led off of our sitting place.

This room is even smaller, cramped even, with a high ceiling. Two chairs are on either side of a wooden desk with drawers and cabinets.

Long-Hair sits in one of the chairs. "Please, do take a seat."

I comply, plonking my ass down onto the cushiony seat opposite.

"What is your full name?"

"Matthew Sanson."

"Age?"

"Nineteen"

"Can you tell me your version of what happened tonight? Don't leave out any details. Everything could be important."

I almost laugh. Everything? We'd be here all night. I suck in a breath and begin. "Emily Xao and I came up to the lodge by cablecar at around eight pm. We were meeting our mutual friend Joshua Washington, whose parents own the lodge, with some others. It was a reunion, see, we've been friends for years."

He cuts in. "When did unusual things start to happen?"

Probably when we went to fetch Em's bag. "When we met our friends at the lodge, Em realised she'd forgotten her bag. When we went back to the cablecar to fetch it, we heard screams. Not human ones." I remember it well. How calm-and-collected Emily panicked.

He frowns. "Go on. Anything out-of-the-ordinary."

"Em freaked out, so we were walking back up to the lodge when Chris and Ashley ran up to us. They were both sobbing. They told us that Josh was dead, and Ashley was all splattered with blood. We sent them back to the house, they were on the point of nervous breakdown, when Chris described a psychopath in a mask, who'd forced Chris to choose between killing Ashley or killing Josh with a sawblade that he could control with a lever."

Long-Hair looks worried, scribbling furiously on sheets of paper with my name on the top. I'm not surprised. "Anything else?" His calm expression is false. He's curious and nervous, hoping I'm lying.

"When Ash and Chris went back down to the house, Em and I went to the radio tower to try and call the park service. There we were attacked."

"Attacked?"

"Somebody set the tower on fire, and it fell down into the old abandoned mines, taking Emily with it. I don't know what happened to her, but I know she got away and back to the lodge."

"But do you know what exactly attacked you? That's vital information."

"Yeah, I know!" I snap. "At first we thought it was the psychopath that killed Josh, but it wasn't, it was..." I stop. I'm going to sound positively insane. How do I tell them that we were chased by mythical creatures?

"It was..." Long-Hair prompts.

"Holy shit... This is gonna sound crazy, but you have to believe me. The others will tell you the same. We were attacked by monsters called wendigos."

Long-Hair is peering into my eyes. Probably looking for signs of madness, and when he can't find any he's disappointed. "Okay. Wendigos. Are you sure?"

I nod. "That's what the man who lives on the mountain told us. The one who didn't want the Washingtons living up there, he was trying to protect them from the  wendigos. He kills them, and documents their behaviour, how to defeat them. He is dead now, ask Chris.

"I know this sounds insane. It sounds weird to me, and I was there. But they killed our friend Jessica Martin. They pulled off her jaw and I think she died from blood loss.  _Right in front of me!_ " I'm yelling suddenly, standing up. I sink back into my chair in shame. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine." He doesn't look up, scribbling on a third piece of paper.

"When Emily fell, I was trying to make my way back to the lodge when I fell down a shaft. I found Jess there, she was all beaten up. A wendigo was chasing us, and we tried to stay still... We tried-"

"Stay still?"

"Wendigos can only see things that move. You're invisible if you stay still. But that's hard. Jess was injured, badly, and she fell over. The wendigo found her. Killed her. Seeing her dead..." I shut up.  Can't talk any more.

"Matthew... I'm very sorry. Really. But please, what else happened?" He doesn't sound sorry.

I summon every last bit of strength in my body. "I stayed still, and the wendigo left. It was satisfied. I ran back to the lodge, fast as I could, and it was on fire. We were picked up by you in the helicopter. That's it."

Long-Hair places a neat fullstop at the end of his sentence. "Thank you for your co-operation." He looks very confused, and incredulous, and he definitely doesn't believe me. At all. Guess the others will have to change his mind.

I storm out, back into the main room with all the others. Chris is back, cradling Ash. Sam gives me a desperately questioning look.

"Told them everything." I say flatly. "Didn't believe me."

**9:32am. Sam.**

Fabulous. They didn't believe him. Why would they, anyway? He must've sounded insane. Fuck.

"I'll go next." I whisper. "I hope they believe me. I doubt it."

Nobody replies. Thanks for the votes of confidence!

"Good luck." Matt finally replies. I'm already through the door, barely hear him.

The guy with the long hair tells me to sit. I do.

"Name?"

"Samantha Corral."

"Age?"

"Nineteen."

He writes my name at the top of a yellowed piece of paper. "So. We've already heard some things from your friend Matthew. We'd like to hear what you have to say."

"So you know we went up to the lodge, eight of us. It was all normal, until some crap started happening. I was away from the others, I took a bath, and when I came downstairs they were all gone, everyone. I was alone, except there was someone else, and he chased me through the house, wearing a mask. I was so scared, so, so scared!" I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. I won't cry, not here, not now, not in front of anyone. I am brave. "He chased me and eventually knocked me out, tied me to a chair in a room under the house. When I woke up, he played videos of Josh being cut in half from all different angles." My breath catches in my throat as I replay the terrible images. Josh's terrible screams. The blood. Ashley's terrified sobs. "After a while, Mike came to rescue me."

The man nods. "Go on."

I lick my dry lips. Haven't had a drink for twelve hours, more? "When Mike and I escaped, we found Chris and Ashley in a different room. They were tied to chairs, with these huge spinning blades above them, moving down toward them. Chris had a gun. We heard the psycho guy saying the blades wouldn't stop until Chris shot either Ashley or himself."

He's listening more now. Filled two pieces of paper with notes.

"He did nothing. The blades got nearer, to kill them, when suddenly they turned off. Ashley was crying and Chris was hysterical. Mike and I just watched from the side. Then the psycho guy walked out. And he took off his mask. It was Josh!"

The man looks up. "Isn't he dead?"

"He is now. But you see, his Dad is a filmmaker, and he used props, stuffed a fake body with pig blood and rigged the first machine he used on Chris and Ash so that it would always 'kill' him. He was making a movie, but we weren't just actors!" I'm trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice. "He never meant to hurt us! He was off his meds, he had problems... After his sisters died, I thought we had a connection..."

"If you want to talk to somebody-"

"I'm fine."

"There's always-"

"I said I'm fine!" I repeat. Why am I so angry?

"So. You said you travelled up with eight of you. Now there are six. Where did two go?"

"Josh and Jessica are both dead."

The man raises a thick eyebrow. "Dead? But you said Josh never meant to hurt anyone."

"Well, Josh didn't kill anyone." I take a deep, calming breath. "The wendigos did."

"Matthew told me about those too. Wendigos are mythical creatures, Samantha. Are you sure?" He obviously doesn't believe me either.

"Go down to the mines."

"What's in the mines, Sam?"

"I've seen what's down there. And I would give anything to unsee it." I hiss. My eyes are hard. This idiot doesn't understand. I rise to my feet. "You don't understand! You don't know! I loved him! Loved him! And I watched him go insane! I watched him dwindle and now  _he is dead!_ You think I'm lying? How did Emily get her bite? Why do we all look like we've been dragged to hell and back?" Did I just _admit_ that I maybe slightly possibly had a crush on Josh? It doesn't matter. Not now.

He looks terrified of me. He can hear the sincerity of my words.

"And do you know what's even better?" I narrow my eyes. "Do you know how a wendigo is made? When a human resorts to cannibalism on Blackwood Pines, they turn into a wendigo." I slam my hands onto the table. "Hannah and Beth Washington disappeared when they fell off a cliff, being chased by a wendigo. Beth died instantly. Hannah survived."

I pause to let this bombshell drop. The questioner is panicking. I almost want to laugh at his wide eyes.

"She was down there for weeks. We found a diary. All she had was the rainwater that seeped down the mineshaft. She was so hungry that she. Ate. Beth." I pause between each word. It has the desired effect, the tension in the air is about to snap. "She became a wendigo. She killed her own brother! She killed Jessica! She attacked us! And maybe, hopefully, she died when I set the lodge aflame!" I'm shouting, my heart's pounding, the man is talking into a radio, shouting something about getting a squad to go and look at the mines. I toss my hair out of my face and breathe. Stay calm.

"I'm done here." Turn on my heel. Walk out. Slam the door behind me.

Everyone's been staring at the door, probably heard me yelling. Their eyes snap to me. I give them my deadliest smile.

"I think they believe us now."


	4. 10am-11am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More questions. Will Em crack under the pressure?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this is really fun! I'm definitely going to finish all twelve chapters, promise!

**10:00am. Emily.**

Sam's interview is not going well. That's evident from her yelling that we hear from the interview room, and how her voice catches in her throat like she's about to cry, and yet I've never heard her so angry.

The others are listening too, trying to make out Sam's words but the walls are too thick and the door too heavy. We can do nothing until she comes out and one of us goes in.

Matt's related the details of his interview, how the questioner didn't believe a word he said. We must all sound like stupid little kids, making up stories to make the adults laugh.

Sam's yelling is louder than ever, we can clearly hear her words.

"She became a wendigo! She killed her own brother! She killed Jessica! She attacked us! And maybe, hopefully, she died when I set the lodge aflame!" Silence follows.

After a second, she wrenches open the door and slams it shut behind her, stormy faced. Her thin lips stretch into an evil smile and she narrows her icy eyes into a cruel glare. "I think they believe us now."

She sounds totally psychopathic. Anyone would after what we've seen, but the the craze in Sam's eyes beats all the madness we contain put together.  "Emily." She says, her angry eyes turning to meet my tranquil ones. "You need to go next. Show them your bite. They'll have to believe us. Please."

I really don't want to. At all. But Sam's right, it's the best path to take, so I just nod, plant a quick kiss on Matt's cheek, shakily stand and take plodding, weighty steps into the room and slump uninvited into the chair opposite the questioner. Gently, I adjust my sticky leather jacket so as to make my bite mark more obvious.

The interviewer guy is talking into a radio. Probably about stuff Sam said.

He smashes a few buttons and drops the radio onto the desk in front of me.

"Name?"

"Emily Xao."

"Age?" 

"Nineteen."

He sighs. "How did you get that wound on your shoulder?"

A thousand biting and sarcastic remarks come to mind, but just in time I remember these are the police and I bite my tongue. "I was bitten by a wendigo."

"U-huh? Okay. We'll get it treated, but it doesn't seem to be causing you much pain."

"It's not. I'm fine."

I'm not lying; it doesn't hurt at all, but the scar is mangled and messy and dripping down my chest so I guess he probably thinks I'm dying.

"Tell me everything strange that happened tonight."

The lodge, Chris and Ash, the Radio Tower, the mines, the chase, the stranger, the final showdown at the house... Where do I begin?

"Matt probably told you a lot, like how we heard weird noises when we had to fetch my bag. Then we met Chris and Ash who told us about Josh... Dying. Then Matt and I went to the radio tower and I called park service. The radio tower was set on fire and taken out by the wendigos. We fell..." I feel my eyes glazing over.

* * *

_I put down the radio, a sense of unstable achievement washing over me. We will be safe. Safe by dawn. If the remainder of us can live until the storm clears..._

_The tower is shaking even more now."Matt..." My voice is shaky. Pieces of wood begin to fall and crash and splinter around us and he pulls me close to him. "Hold on to something!" I try to do as he says but I feel the tower keeling over to one side, slowly, slowly falling so that I cannot hold on and we feel every second of fear that floods through my veins as we gradually descend to the snow. The structure has turned totally on its side and we both fall toward the ground with it. Wouldn't it be so easy if we could just land, and die quickly? But of course not. Life is never that simple. The tower lands in a crack in the earth, presumably one leading down to the mines._

_"MATT!?" I call. Where is he? Oh my god._

_"Em? EMILY! I'm here!" He calls. I look up. He's standing on what used to be the floor of the wrecked tower, three, four metres above me? He tries in vain to take a step forward, but his weight makes wood crumble around us. The floor I'm standing on breaks away. I feel vertigo rush in my stomach as I fall, but I catch onto a pole that used to hold up the tower. It doomed me to fall, but saves me now._

_"Oh my GOD, Matt, help me!" I cry, the words raw and ugly._

_"EM! Oh god, I'm thinking, wait!"_

_"Stop thinking and HELP ME, meatbrain!" I yell back, hyperventilating, crying, can't stop, Matt, please help..._

_Suddenly Matt leaps over my head, to the snowy floor next to the crack. I gasp with relief. He's safe, he's unharmed. Now he can help me._

_But no. The world really has it in for me today. Matt was balancing out the tower with his weight, and now that he is gone, the tower wobbles... And creaks... And drops me into the darkness._

_The last I see is Matt reaching out toward me, screaming my name, hanging his torso over the edge of the crack._

_Oh Matt, I think. Don't die. Stay safe._

_Then my mind succumbs to the fear and I plunge into a spiralling hell of my thoughts._

* * *

"I fell..." I say. "Matt escaped. I'm so glad he's okay..." Where has this emotion come from? "I'm-I'm such a bitch to him, why don't I just treat him properly?" I'm crying now, fully broken. "He probably hates me..."

"Listen, Emily. I know tonight has been difficult, but I need to know what happened after." He probably gave that speech to the others. Why should he care? It's not his problem. But it is important that they know everything, so maybe we can save stupid tourists from going up the mountain again and facing any wendigos that Mike and Sam didn't kill. Maybe we can save lives.

"I woke up a while later. My foot was caught in a rope loop. I was dangling over a huge drop, it was awful!" He nods encouragingly.

"But I managed to swing onto a platform thing, and I got away. I ran into the mines, it's huge down there, like a maze and I ran and ran and ran, I tried to find a way out. I was chased by the wendigos. I had to hold so still. I'd never known true terror until then.

"I couldn't stay still for long though. I was careless and it took a chunk outta my arm. But I was too numb to feel it, and all it did was make me run faster, into a new section of the mines. This bit was a lot more rocky and more dangerous. There was another person in there, a man, who gave me a flare to light my way. He told to me to escape. That stranger is the reason I'm here.

"I lit some things on fire to keep away the wendigos, and managed to escape the mines. I rode a cell phone wire like a zipwire and then ran back to the lodge where Sam, Chris, Ashley and Mike were. When Matt wasn't there, it almost killed me. I thought he was dead.

"I was alive though, and everything felt okay, until Ashley noticed my wendigo bite. She and Mike freaked, while Sam tried to calm them the hell down. They thought I was going to _turn._ He held a gun right in front of my face, that bastard. Right in front of me! You date a guy for however long and you think you know them, but this one really takes the cake. He could've killed me, the prick!"

"But he didn't?"

"No. He wasn't brave enough." I spit. "Then after that, wendigos came right into the house! Mike and Sam managed to set the lodge on fire to kill them, and luckily we all got out first. Then you came, then I found Matt!" I'm about to cry again. I need to shut my mouth.

"Emily. I know you and your friends don't think I believe you, but I do. I've sent a team down there right now to check out the mines."

Oh no. Oh my god. Idiots. Idiots idiots idiots! "What were they armed with?" I ask, my speech wavering. "Tell me."

"Guns, of course." He replies with a smile.

"If you sent them down without goddamn  _flamethrowers,_ then don't expect any of them to come back!" My voice is barely an angry whisper, and I stand and leave without being asked to.

**10:28am. Search Squad A.**

The group slowly and silently advanced down a long and rotting corridor. These mines were dark and incredibly cold, the sort of chill that bit down to the bone and froze you form the inside out. 

There was no sound other than a steady drip of rainwater that slipped from the stony walls of the mineshaft. There was no evidence of a person or creature. There was nothing.

But still, the squad clung to their new guns and proceeded with caution. There was a presence in the air, a dark and cruel one.

Still. Silent. Unmoving. The patter of... Feet? The whole squad jumped to attention, guns aimed desperately at where the noise appeared to be coming from. Locating the noise was difficult; the passageways echoed and carried voices far away, but the squad guessed that they were pretty close. 

They guessed wrong.

A strange, inhumane shape flew at them from behind with a scream that tore at the squad's eardrums before the creature's nails tore at their chests. Blood squirted and swirled, screams of agony floated in the air, and the last thing a dying officer saw was a famous face, wrecked and tortured and ruined, with needle-sharp teeth rimmed by claret blood and clawed fingers with flesh chunks trapped beneath the nails, bent over in a crouch like a monkey, thick skinned so that each bullet simply bounced away.

The face of Joshua Washington.

**10:44am. Chris.**

Emily walks out of the room. "They believe us." She says. "They really do. But they are idiots." She slumps down onto a chair next to Matt. "They sent an entire goddamn squad down there with  _guns._ Actual _guns._ So many are going to die down there. Fuck's sake." She starts crying as much as Ashley was, and buries her face in Matt's chest. "I'm sorry..." She mumbles. "Matt... I'm so, so sorry..."

We all exchange nervous looks. That's a whole police squad against any wendigos left down there. And the squad are defenceless.

"Yeesh." I say. That's all I really can say.

The man with the long hair hurries back into our room. "Emily. The thing you said about how the squad is going to die. We just recieved a report from an officer that we sent down. The entire squad that we dispatched is dead, and he believes that he is fatally wounded. Their guns had no effect on the creature they encountered." Emily snorts through her tears. "One more thing. The creature. The report said that it bore a striking resemblance to Joshua Washington."

What? How? Josh? A wendigo? Oh my god.

"Makes sense." Mike says. First he's said in the time we've been here. "When the wendigo attacked Josh, it never killed him. Just dragged him away."

"And you never thought to mention this? Jesus, Mike!" Emily hisses.

Mike doesn't reply, like he's slipping in and out of catatonia.

"We'll be investigating these developments within the coming days. For now, you must be hungry. We're going to take you to the cafeteria, where you can eat and rest. After that we will continue your questioning. Thank you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go! Please leave Kudos and top, but be nice, emotional strength of a cardboard box and all that.


	5. 11am-12pm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Chris have a hard time facing Josh's fate. Ashley tells Officer Liatenchi the details of her and Chris' ordeal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm adding an epilogue to this story, so there'll be thirteen chapters :3  
> Enjoy!  
> I'm sorry this took so long... School has taken over my life again so it might take a little longer for chapters to come out. Sorry!

**11:00am. Sam.**

"...bore a striking resemblance to Josh Washington."

Everything turns fuzzy, my head is pounding and I can't breathe.

Josh.

Please, please not Josh.

Ragged, choked splutters tumble from my mouth. Wheezes and stuttered breaths jerk painfully into my lungs. Everything is so blurry, why? Why do colours jumble and swim and make my head hurt even more? When I close my eyes it feels as if they are slamming shut and knocking painfully against each other. The swirl of hues still awaits under my eyelids. There is no escape.

Hot, wet tears stream down my pale cheeks and I can't stop them, even though they trail burning tracks of fire on my face. My eyes glow emerald green on the rare occasion that I cry, and I feel them sparkling with dampness. None of my friends have ever seen me like this, even after Hannah and Beth. The only person to see me sob for years is... Josh.

Brave Josh. Funny Josh. Kind Josh, who helped me so much in such hard times.

Not sick Josh. Cruel Josh. Not the Josh that chased me through a house and knocked me out. Not the Josh that set up those bloody and disgusting traps for Chris and Ashley. Not the Josh I fell in love with.

I know, it's a cliché. The little girl falls in love with her best friend's big brother. Except for the part about the big brother going insane and turning into a vicious monster with next to no humanity left.

I hear guttural noises, sounds of hollow desperateness. It takes me a moment to realise they fall from my mouth. Everyone is staring at me, I feel their eyes probing my face. I must look awful, but I couldn't care less. Almost as if I'm detached from my body, my soul seems to float away, gently into a soft carpet of black.

I hear something about something making sense. A mumble about going to a cafeteria. Then I collapse to the gentle carpet, and think no more.

**11:09am. Chris.**

The world kind of stops spinning for a moment. Emily purses her pink lips, eyes shining with repressed tears. Matt puts his head in his hands. Mike has drifted back to his catatonic state. And Sam's head slams against the desk, seeming lifeless for a moment before I realise the stress has made her pass out.

"She's just fainted." I splutter. "She's okay... She's fine." I feel really dizzy, a lot of pain emanating from my forehead. When I reach up and brush my frozen finger against it, I feel a cracked scab and my fingertip comes away drenched in blood. Another trip to the medical room with Sam, it seems.

I can't believe Josh is gone. The Josh we know. My best friend. It wrings glistening tears from my cloud grey eyes, as if they are raining, and blood mingles with them and stains red lines down my face.

The long haired man who questioned us calls in some people, and through hazy tears I am carried out the room on a stretcher, Sam slumped awkwardly on a similar one next to me, and we are carted back off to the cold white room away from my friends and from Ashley.

**11:23am. Ashley.**

I hug my elbows closer to my chest. I need Chris, right now, but all I can see is the line of blood that streaked his face like war paint. He'll be treated and then I can see him. It'll be okay. I've lied to myself a lot in the past hours.

Emily is apologising to Matt, not sure why, but she buries her face in his chest, tears leaking like rain from her cloudy eyes. He holds her tight, telling her that everything is alright, how nothing is her fault. He is such a good person. Emily needs someone like him. Especially after tonight. After what I did to her. A quick glance at Mike shows tears glazing his brown eyes. He's thinking the same as I am: we have no one to hold, no one to hold us; both of us are totally isolated in an uncaring world. At least Chris is alive, even if he isn't with me. Jess' mangled body is probably in Josh's stomach by now.

But for now, I'm stuck in a room with a girl I wanted dead, her protective boyfriend and her would-be murderer. Great. Oh yeah, and a policeman, who is still going on about visiting a cafeteria, even though I'm not hungry and nobody is listening. Could go for a drink, but that feels like giving in.

Evidently the police are not mind readers and do not know what I was thinking because suddenly Officer Liatenchi is back and she's ushering all of us, even Mike, down a maze of tunnel-like corridors and into a cafeteria room. There are geoups of wooden seating and tables in uniform rows, and at the opposite end of the cafeteria is a mini bar-thing, with sandwiches and pasties that I can smell from here. I realise I am hungry, exceedingly so, and I make my way through the empty room and pick up a smoked salmon sandwich. I don't even like salmon but I've never been this starving in my life so I scoff it without noticing the fish-y flavour and glug four glasses of water from a tap. It tastes like molten gold and satisfies my gnawing thirst.

Emily, who usually watches what she eats, has devoured several times what I ate. Her exhausted, wrung out, drained body craves sustenance and Mike eats an equal feast of cold turkey rolls. Officer Liatenchi watches them with one eyebrow raised, while Matt barely speaks, picking at a cheese sandwich.

"Can we see Chris and Sam?" I ask after swallowing a final bite of grainy bread. My voice sounds flat as I try to restrain the tears hidden behind it.

"I don't know." Liatenchi replies, shaking her head. "I'm sure they'll both be fine, though. It was just a lot of shock for them both." She is probably well-updated on the situation, and knows about Josh's unfortunate... end.

What I hate is that Josh isn't dead. He isn't at peace. He is suffering, alone, gorging on mangled travellers unlucky enough to stumble across Blackwood Pines and saw it as a beautiful mountain retreat. When I cast my mind back to just over a year ago, before tragedy struck, that was how I thought of the Washington Lodge too. Now it is just the grave of some of the best people I have known. Even the stranger, who knew us for less than an hour but was so willing to help, who gave up his life for Chris', is forever engraved in the part of memory I'd rather forget.

"What's your name?" Liatenchi's big brown eyes lock with mine. "Well?"

"Uh, A-Ashley." I stutter.

"Don't worry about your friend, Ashley." She says. "His wounds weren't permanent."

"Maybe not the physical ones." I say, a harsh tone creeping into my voice.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Has nobody told her about the Psycho? Guess there's nobody better than me to tell her. "Josh went insane. After his sisters... Y'know." She nods. "He's always been an aspiring filmmaker, like his Dad. But just acting wasn't good enough for him. We were unwilling participants. We didn't get paid to cover ourselves with fake blood, or fake scream and laugh about it later.

"Josh put Chris and I in a series of awful situations. The first one was awful. A man in a mask, who we later found out was Josh, knocked us both out an when I woke up I was tied to a wall. Josh was tied next to me. There was a spinning saw thing attached to a box that ran along these train tracks that spit into two paths. Each of those paths lead to either me or Josh. Chris was divided from us with a wire wall that cut the room in two. He had a lever. And a voice told him that the lever controlled the sawblade. He could pick who to kill. His crush, or his best friend.

"Turns out that Josh rigged the machine to kill him, whatever Chris picked. He used a fake body full of pig blood and intestines. But that didn't change the fact that I saw what looked like Josh be slowly cut in half by a fucking saw! I thought I was covered in my best friend's blood, and Chris thought he'd chosen to murder his best friend. That really did something to both of us. But guess what? It gets worse."

Liatenchi is listening intently. She looks worried, just like everybody else in this whole building. Wish somebody had some emotion other than Oh no, poor small children.

"After Josh 'died' we went back to the lodge together. Guess what? There we got attacked again, and I woke up strapped to a chair. Chris was opposite me. And there were huge fucking sawblades above our heads, slowly moving down towards our necks. And if that wasn't pure terror that I felt then I don't know what is.

"The Psycho was behind this too. He gave Chris a gun and told him he could either shoot himself or shoot me. The other person could live!" I pause to wipe away angry tears that are beginning to leak from my eyes. "I told Chris to shoot me but he refused. He put the gun to his own temple and he pulled the trigger!

"But nothing happened. The sawblades stopped. Chris was amazed that he was still alive, and I was crying, he was crying, it was horrible. The tears washed some of the blood off my face. And then the Psycho walked in.

"Chris shot at him, but he just laughed and told us the gun wasn't loaded. It only shot blanks! When he pulled off his mask and it was Josh I swear I wanted to wrap my fingers round his throat and watch the light leave his goddamn eyes. But I didn't. He untied us, he laughed, acted like it was all a joke, explained how he made a fake body for the trick before. It was the least funny prank I'd ever witnessed." I know it wasn't Josh's fault, I know that. But knowing that doesn't stem the surging anger that I feel suddenly.

For a moment I am glad that Josh is gone forever and won't bother us again. I hate him. And then that thought is gone and I hate myself for thinking it.

**11:47am. Chris.**

My head is throbbing angrily as I regain conciousness. It's all bandaged up now. When did I even get that scar, and why didn't they treat it before? Who knows? All I do know is that dried blood is covering the left half of my face, and I'm back in the ugly white medical room, on the mattress in the corner again. The only difference is Sam is lying a metre or so away from me, on a similar mattress, seemingly still asleep.

I miss Josh. A lot. I've never had a friend like him; funny, cool, happy and wealthy to go with it. We spent so many hours together, doing kid things, adult things, got through exams and breakups and pain together. We always had each other. We saved each other time and time again. Now there is nobody here for me and I float in a kind of friendless purgatory.

I know I sort of have Ashley, but who knows what state she's in and she wasn't as close to Josh as I was. Ash isn't very empathetic, but I know she tries. I'm glad to at least have her by my side. 

I look at the exhausted, crumpled body of Sam, comatose on her makeshift bed. Her red hoodie is dirt stained, and her usually rosy skin is horrifically pale. We all know her and Josh had a  _thing_ for each other, and Sam will have to come to terms with our grief when she wakes up. I hope she sleeps for a while longer. Nobody deserves pain like Sam has felt. Her best friends, her crush, all dead or gone or worse, and even the thought of Jess stabs at my heart like a knife. 

Sam looks so peaceful. That is a peace that we all deserve, but I know that after tonight my dreams will be tortured and nightmarish forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok there you go! I'll try and get some more parts out soon, peace out.


	6. 12pm-1pm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry that this took so long to get out! I was ill for two weeks, then I procrastinated and school has been pretty intense recently. But here it is. I'm sorry!

**12:00pm. Emily.**

Ashley is  _such_ a sob story. We've all been through shit tonight, Ash isn't some special fucking snowflake because Josh screwed with her head, okay? I survived an action-movie kinda chase scene with, oh, I don't know, frickin'  _wendigos,_ and I get no sympathy whatsoever, while Liatenchi has an arm around Ashley and is handing her tissues to wipe away her angelic little tears. Ugh. Everyone's emotions are running high tonight, and I sure got no sympathy when I cried for the parade of dead policemen they sent to the mines.

The few police officers here on lunch break have begun to filter out despite it being so early, and Ashley's sobs echo lamely around the empty room, with no voices left to mask the sound. She looks like a newborn baby, her face red-pink and screwed up, tears streaming down her dirty face. Helpless. In pain like us. I almost catch myself feeling bad, then I remember this bitch tried to get my ex-boyfriend to shoot me in the head. So I look away and nestle deeper into Matt's shoulder.

Everyone's acting as if Josh's (not to sound dramatic) _fate_ was totally unexpected, but when he didn't join us on the helicopter what were we supposed to expect? Anyone left behind was basically wendigo feed, and I guess Josh got super unlucky because he played Russian Roulette one too many times with Blackwood Pines and ended up less the wendigo  _feed_ and more the  _wendigo._

Matt seems reasonably unfazed too, which is surprising, seeing as he's usually pretty emotional. He probably weighed up Josh's options and came to the same conclusion as I did, and Mike apparently is unable to feel emotion right now other than the odd awkward swallow he does to dislodge the painful lump in his throat. It'll take months of therapy for him to get over losing Jess and even then wounds like that never fully heal. The blood stops and they scab over but there will always be a red scar-patch that itches a lot and never lets you forget that it is there.

"What now?" I ask, keeping my tone as flat and level as possible. Liatenchi looks up, one arm around Ashley's shoulders still, and puts one tan hand on her hip. 

"I don't know. Honestly." She sighs and her brow creases. "After Chris and Sam's obvious trauma, I doubt they will continue questioning today... You'll probably just have to hang around here for a bit."

I nod and purse my lips. I'd like to talk to my mom, but I suppose I'm not a minor anymore and I'd feel childish asking to phone 'mommy' because I'm scared. "Can we do anything? Other than sit and ponder the slow and likely painful deaths of our best friends?" Mike winces at this, and Ashley squeezes her eyes tighter shut. God, Em! Maybe that was a _little_ harsh. 

Liatenchi ignores my comment, and goes on. "Well, honestly, we can't keep you here. We believe you've done nothing wrong, so you can go. Sam and Chris may want to stay here for free medical attention, and I recommend the rest of you stay in the area in case we need to question you. Just in case!" She adds after I sigh in frustration. "You can sleep here, and if you walk about a mile out you'll get to Blackwood. There are cafés and stuff there."

Ashley takes a deep breath before choking out: "W-we can g-go there." 

"Just... Be careful." Liatenchi says. "There are a bunch of cliffs near the path to Blackwood with no safety guards. They're pretty dangerous so watch out, okay?"

We all nod, and are guided to the front desk of the police station and into the outside world. The breeze is bitter cold, nips at my ears and blows my hair back. "I'm not going to the town." I whisper, mostly to myself but Matt hears me and nods, and I loop my arm around his. "I'm gonna go and look at the cliffs." 

Mike and Ashley wander away down a gravelly path that I assume Liatenchi was talking about, the one that goes all the way to Blackwood. Matt and I follow it for a way until we reach the cliffs.

I'm shocked by how abruptly the world ends. It's as if God snapped the land in half and tossed away one piece, exposing the grey, white and red chalk-stone that lies hidden beneath frosty grass and hardened dirt like the chocolate inside a plainly wrapped Easter egg. It would be so, so easy to walk over the edge and fly...

So when I stumble toward the cliff and flop to the ground with my legs hanging limply over the side, I'm not surprised that Matt almost had a heart attack. He races over to me, feet plodding against the earth, and sits next to me. We stare together into the abyss that would kill us both without a second thought. Yet when I feel our fingers entwine and our warm lips meet again it seems so normal to love on the brink of death itself.

Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to fall? Would I slowly sink to the ground like a feather, or tumble aimlessly like a chunk of rock? Finding out would be... Liberating.

The call of the void overtakes me and I have an overwhelming desire to boost myself from my position with both hands and skydive towards the earth. But instead I scramble desperately away from the chasm lip and curl into a tight ball, sobbing hysterically into my knees.

**12:24pm. Mike.**

Ashley and I have walked for nearly fifteen minutes now, and I can see the small town that is Blackwood in the near distance, mostly square, grey buildings dotted with red-brick and even some pale blue rectangles. It looks like an abstract painting, blocks of colour shoved together in a useless, pointless, ugly piece of shit.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I get there. Probably buy the strongest coffee I can find.

Over the time we walked, Ash and I managed to get all the dirt and blood off of each other's faces so now we look reasonably presentable, human almost.

Almost.

Ashley had to ditch her jacket that was soaked in pig's blood, though, and my coat had to be turned inside out because it was so fucked up. Her shorts still have little blood specks on but nobody will get close enough to us to notice.

I tread silently on the rocky path, but Ash drags her feet on the loose, beige stones, with a painful scraping noise. You know what it sounds like? It sounds like...

* * *

_"MICHAEL! HELP ME!" Her terrified screams are shrill and sharp, they sting my ears like little needles._

_"JESSICA!" I yell back into the darkness, and the only reply is her cry of pain and panic._

_There is a loud crash that makes my ears ring, accompanied by a chorus of Jess' shrieks and harmonised with the sound of her limp, wracked body being dragged across the cruel terrain like boots being dragged across gravel..._

* * *

"M-Mike?" I snap back to real life, Jess' final moments with me fresh  and sore in my mind.

"Mike!" Ashley tugs at my sleeve like a lost child, her big puppy eyes desperate and lonely. "We're almost there. I have some cash, let's go sit somewhere."

When I glance up, I see she's right; my feet have subconsciously carried me to the abstract-painting town, which looks better up close. More like one of those British seaside towns and less like a clump of crap. "Okay. Try find somewhere that's empty."

**12:48pm. Matt.**

Emily and I go inside after a while. It's too cold, too bleak to stay out, and I have a feeling Emily is going to do something crazy if we remain by the cliffs.

We remind the plump man at the front desk who we are, and tell him what the Officer told us: We're staying here overnight, we need rooms, we need showers. Is there water? Can we get food if we want? What do we do? 

He slowly and patiently answers our questions, gives us directions to water fountains and the cafeteria, retrieves books and magazines and a TV remote for us, and finally leads us to our rooms.

I say 'rooms' in the loosest sense of word. A closer translation is 'cell with an unlocked door'. Literally. 

There are two beds in this room, and presumably they just dragged another one in for Em. Each is flat and white, with black supports and a thick blanket on top. Not too bad. 

The walls are whitewashed with cheap paint that has cracked and crumbled over time, and the floor is made of white tiles which are mainly chipped and imperfect. Otherwise the room is basically a box. The only other defining feature is an archway cut into one wall that leads to a suspiciously clean bathroom, and one of those old fat TVs is resting on the floor. I assume that's what the remote is for. 

"Welcome to paradise." I whisper to Em. She smiles grimly and sighs a little. "It's our home away from home, huh?"

The man from the reception coughs quietly, and we both turn on our heels to face him. 

"Everyone will have these kind of rooms." He squeaks. "You're free to come and go as you please. Goodbye." He shuts the cell door behind him but I don't hear the click of a lock. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's so short! I just wanted to get out another part ASAP so yeah... Please leave kudos and comments with tips, be nice though, I have the emotional strength of a pug


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